


into the forest of fireflies' light

by beans



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Romance, i got yelled at cuz i didnt tag it even tho no1 "dies", just read the damn fic, my heart hurts while writing this, not really but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:48:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beans/pseuds/beans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gets lost in a forest where spirits reside. Louis becomes his friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	into the forest of fireflies' light

**Author's Note:**

> for reema and fatma, because i know they hate me AND larry, but they love hotarubi no mori e. (kinda)
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://www.878554.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/greateriove)

The first time Harry met Louis was when he was six.

“Make sure you listen to your uncle.” Anne, Harry’s mum, tells him.

“I _know_.” He says, rolling his eyes the way his mate Niall taught him. His mum is not impressed. He’s running around his house, searching for things to take over to his Uncle’s for the summer. Harry sits his bag down beside the front door and sits on the step, awaiting his uncle's arrival.

“Where is he?” He questions impatiently.

“He’s _coming_ , Harry. Are you that excited to get away from me for the summer?” His mum says jokingly. Harry shrugs, as if he wasn’t listening to a word she said. He’s just excited to get to spend a summer away from home.

His mum got a summer job somewhere down in London; and instead of bringing Harry, his uncle is taking him in for a few months.

“Your uncle has a very nice house up in the mountains, baby. Maybe he'll take you exploring?” He remembers his mum telling him.

Harry shoots up when he hears the familiar honk, kisses his mum goodbye and runs out the door.

Summer is about to begin.

 

\--

 

Harry’s a little upset.

His first issue is that he’s lost. In the woods. Miles behind his uncles home.

His second issue is that his brand new shoes are _dirty_. His shirt is torn from where it got snagged on a branch, and his jeans are muddy from when he tripped over a rock.

He’s having a horrible time exploring, and his uncle is suddenly nowhere to be found. Harry wipes at his runny nose and teary eyes with his sleeve and passes a sign that reads “This is the forest that the mountain God and spirits live. Set foot within, and you’ll lose your way forever.”

Harry looks around and realizes he has nowhere else to go. So he passes the sign and steps into a deeper part of the woods. After a few minutes of walking by himself, he hears footsteps come up behind him. Harry stops in his tracks.

He turns around slowly, and is relieved when nobody is there. Soon enough, he hears someone- or something- come running up behind him. So he runs as well.

“Please don’t hurt me!” Harry screams as he trips over a fallen branch. He pulls his knees up to his chest and continues crying.

“Hey! Curly!” A voice shouts from a distance. Harry looks up quickly and gazes around the forest. He can’t see anyone, so he replies, “Hello?”

“Over here!” The same voice yells. Harry stands up quick and turns around to see a boy wearing a mask standing behind a tree, not too far away from him.

“Who are you?” Harry asks, wiping away his tears with his sleeve. The boy steps out from behind the tree and shrugs.

“Why are you crying?” He replies.

“I-I’m lost. I can’t find my uncle.” Harry cries.

“He’s not in here. I would know.” The boy says. Harry’s eyes well up more.

Harry takes a deep breath and asks, “Will you help me out?”

“I mean, sure.” The boy shrugs. And Harry, as relieved as he is, runs towards him to give him a hug. When he reaches the boy, he moves out of the way and watches Harry fall to the ground.

“Please don’t touch me,” He says politely. “You’re human, correct?”

Harry stares at him blankly and replies, “Yes. Are you not?”

“If a human touches me, I’ll get in big trouble, okay?” The boy says. Harry stares at him for a moment and tilts his head confusedly. If this person isn’t human, what is he? He stands back up and dusts off his already-dirty jeans and holds his hand out.

“I’m Harry. What is your name?”

The boy laughs lightly and picks up a broken branch beside his foot. He holds one ends and places the other end in Harry’s hand.

“Hold onto this and don’t let go, okay? Please don’t touch me.”

The boy leads and Harry follows. It takes them some time to figure out that that’s how it will always be.

 

\--

 

Harry finds himself a few feet from his uncle’s backdoor and turns back to the boy.

“You weren’t afraid.” The boy says.

“Of what?”

“Me. Do you know what I am?” He asks.

Harry stares at him for a few silent moments and shrugs. “A ghost?”

“Sorta,” The boy says, looking back at the woods. “I can’t be out here much longer. Please be more careful next time.”

“Wait!” Harry says as the boy begins to walk away. “You never told me your name.”

“Louis. Have a nice day, Curly.”

And Harry doesn’t know if he’s seeing things or not, but Louis evaporates into thin air after he says his goodbye. Harry stares at the space in awe.

“Harry!” His uncle yells from behind him. “Where have you been?!”

“I got lost in the woods! But it’s okay because-”

“ _Don’t_ go into those woods. If you go in there and get hurt, what are you going to do?” His uncle says. Harry gets a little upset, because if he hadn’t of gone into the woods then he wouldn’tve met Louis. He shrugs anyways, and plans out his next visit to the woods in his head.

 

\--

 

Harry visits Louis in the woods more often than not. He becomes so infatuated with this boy that he tells his best mate from home all about him.

“Niall, he’s really sweet, okay? He wears the same pair of black jeans every single day. And they’re _never_ dirty! He wears this cool mask that has paint on it, and he hasn’t taken it off yet but we’ve only been friends for a few days.” Harry rambles into the phone. Niall stays silent on the other line before he speaks.

“Don’t you think it’s kinda weird how that guy is hanging out in the woods every single day though? Doesn’t he get hungry? Where does he _poop_?”

“He doesn't _poop_ , Niall. Ghosts don’t poop.” Harry laughs. He stops laughing when he hears Niall gasp.

"A _ghost_?”

“I think so, yes. I asked him if he was a ghost and he said kinda. That means yes, right?”

Niall hangs up the phone. Harry stares at it in shock for a few seconds before shrugging and putting it down as well. He goes to sleep in the spare room, as he does every night, and if he dreams of the boy from the woods, nobody has to know.

 

\--

 

Summers pass and Harry grows, but Louis doesn’t.

“You’re a proper middle schooler now, aren’t you?” Louis says one day during the summer before Harry’s seventh grade year. He’s swinging a branch between them as Harry walks on a log, balancing himself so he doesn't fall. He’s growing comfortable with not being able to touch Louis, even though they’re best friends and he deserves a hug every once in a while.

Harry nods and bites his lip, focusing on keeping his balance. After every summer, Harry goes back to his Mum’s and continues his normal life. He goes to school and hangs out with his friends, but that’s what the school year is for. Summers are for Louis.

“Do you like school?” Louis asks, trying to keep the conversation alive while they’re walking. Harry nods noncommittally tries to pass over a large hole in the log. His foot slips off the side of the large log and he begins to fall. Louis gasps and reaches for him, but he pulls back at the last second. Harry lands face down in the grass and begins laughing.

“That was awesome!”

“Curly, you could’ve broken a limb! Nothing about that was even remotely awesome.” Louis laughs back. They stop laughing as they hear a branch break a few feet away.

“Don’t touch him.” A bored voice says. Harry stands up to hide behind Louis.

“Zayn, please relax.” Louis says. Harry peaks around Louis’ hip and sees a boy about the same age as Louis standing a few short steps away from them.

“I’m serious. If you touch him, we’ll hurt you.”

“ _Zayn_.” Louis scolds.

“Who’s we?” Harry says confusedly. Louis grips onto the branch in his hands.

“Us who live here. We are very protective of our Louis. If you touch him, he’ll disappear.”

“He’ll _what_?” Harry shouts.

“That’s enough, Zayn. Leave. Now.”

And so he does. He gives Louis a bored look and disappears into thin air, just like Louis did on the day they met.

“What did he mean by that? You’ll disappear?” Harry asks, eyes welling up with tears.

Louis sighs and says, “To disappear means to be obliviated. Or at least that’s what they told me.”

“Who’s we?!” Harry asks again, stomping his foot on the grassy ground.

“Those who _live here, Harry_. The ‘ghosts’, or whatever you call us.”

“Well if you’re not a ghost, then what are you?” Harry says, tired of this subject and ready to go home.

Louis stares at him with a sad look on his face. “I’m not really anything. Neither alive or dead, I guess.”

Harry shakes his head, giving Louis the hint that he doesn't understand. Louis sits on the ground and starts picking at the grass by his feet.

“I was told that when I was a baby, my mum left me here in the middle of the forest. And if you couldn’t tell, this forest has been haunted for quite some time. But we aren’t really ghosts; we’re just here because of the mountain God.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Really? The mountain God.”

Louis chuckles and nods. “Yes, Harold. He owns this mountain, and he takes good care of all of us. So, when I was left here,” Louis says as he begins to fiddle with his mask. “Zayn, who you saw earlier, heard me crying and came over to me. He told me that he was so annoyed with my crying, that he placed this mask over my face and I stopped.”

“So that’s where the mask is from?” Harry says, listening intently.

“Correct, Curly. After a few hours of Zaynie showing me around the forest, he took me to the mountain God and asked what could be done. He said I was too cute to die.” He says, smiling at the memory.

“The mountain God let me live here for a few years, and I was fed fruit and veggies from the plants. I lived in some trees and caves for a while before I started getting really sick. My body was failing for some reason, and one day Zayn found me passed out under a tree.”

“And you died? That’s why you’re a ghost now?” Harry asks. Louis laughs lightly and shakes his head.

“No, silly. He took me to the mountain God. And by then, I was sixteen years old and everyone in the forest had grown pretty fond of me. So he decided to save me. Kind of.” Louis says. He looks over to where Zayn was standing not too long ago and shakes his head.  

“He put a spell on me so that I could exist forever. But I’m not really living. I’ve been sixteen for a few years now. The only way I can die is if I touch a human.”

Harry looks up at Louis, and reaches for his mask. “May I?”

Louis nods, and Harry pulls it away from his face. Harry smiles, and Louis smiles back.

 

\--

 

“He has blue eyes, Niall. And he’s not a ghost. He’s just here. For a while, I guess.” Harry blabbers into the phone that night. They talk animatedly for a few minutes before his uncle calls him to dinner.

Harry sits down and the table and looks at his uncle. “Are the woods haunted?”

His uncle stares at him and shrugs. “I’m not sure. Why?”

Harry shakes his head and doesn’t respond.

“I remember a few years before your aunt passed, she told me a story about how she’d always go play in those woods. And now that I think about it, she did tell me a story that seemed off.”

Harry sits up and says excitedly, “Tell me it!”

“So your auntie and her friends used to go into these woods every summer, right? Well, i guess for the first night of summer every year, there's a festival out in the forest. But nobody goes in there, due to the haunted rumors. They think they walked into a festival for the ghosts.”

“The ghosts.” Harry repeats. His uncle shrugs and continues eating his dinner. The don’t speak the rest of the meal, Harry’s mind racing with images of the festival.

 

\--

 

“Do you think he gets cold?” Harry asks, staring out Niall’s bedroom window. They’re on christmas break, and they’re finally in their last year of high school.

“Who?” Niall says, looking up from his controller.

“Louis.” Harry whispers. He misses him more than ever during the winters. It’s as if he left a part of his heart at his uncle’s home in the mountains.

Niall cackles a bit and looks over at Harry. “You look like you’re in a fuckin’ _music video_ mate. Quick, put your hand on the window and let me take a picture.”

Harry turns his head at stares at Niall coldly. “I’m serious. My uncle told me there's a huge snowstorm coming and I’m worried. Can spirits get cold?”

“Text him and ask.” Niall laughs out. Harry looks at Niall harder and stands up.

“I’m going to go see him.”

And he does.

 

\--

 

He arrives at his uncle’s around noon the next day and goes straight to the woods. The snow is up to his ankles, and his cheeks are flushed from the cold. He finds Louis and Zayn lounging against a fallen tree.

“Harry?” Louis says surprisingly. He stands up and runs over to where Harry is standing. His mask is perched on top of his head.

“I’m older than you now, Did you know that? I turned seventeen last February. I don’t think I told you that.” Harry says breathily.

“Well look at you, Curly. All grown up and what-not. What a lad,” Louis says, smiling widely. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of winter.”

Harry ignores his question and asks, “Are you cold?”

Louis stares at him for a second before shaking his head.

“I don’t know what that feels like.” He says softly, chuckling a bit. Harry nods and shuffles his feet. He feels warm when he’s with Louis. Even when he’s on a mountain covered in snow.

“I brought you this,” He says, handing Louis a scarf and a green beanie. “I was’t sure if you’d need them or not, but I want you to have them.”

Louis looks at the beanie then back at Harry. “The green matches your eyes.”

And if Harry could flush more than he is now, it’d be a world record.

 

\--

 

Harry returns home that night, and Louis finally realizes that for the past many years of his life, he’d been totally underestimating the feeling of loneliness.

He doesn’t sleep, as usual, but he finds himself dreaming of Harry.

“You love him, don’t you?” Zayn asks. Louis jumps.

“He’s my best friend.”

“No, Louis. You _love_ him. That’s not good.”

“I know, okay?” Louis snaps.

“What the hell are you going to do? You can’t be with him. Hell, you’re going to outlive him, Louis.”

Louis nods and doesn’t respond. He thinks of the summer he had four years ago. Harry was entering high school soon and he needed relationship advice.

_“I can teach you many things, Curly, but I cannot teach you love.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Love can’t be taught. It just happens. Like tripping and suddenly catching yourself. Like falling asleep after a long day. It happens really, really slow, and you have no idea whats coming. Nobody can prepare you for love, Harold.”_

\--

 

Harry shows up a few months later with longer hair and a longer body.

“Louis?” He whispers, looking around their usual meeting place for the boy. He feels a tap on his snoulder and turns around.

Louis is standing in front of him, wearing the beanie that Harry gave him. He has his mask in one hand and a branch in the other.

“Did you just touch my white shirt with a dirty stick?” Harry accuses, eyes lighting up. Louis laughs and pokes Harry with the stick again, smearing a bit of dirt onto his shoulder.

“I want you to have this.” Louis says suddenly, handing the mask to Harry.

“Why?”

“Because you’re growing up, and you probably won’t be coming here anymore, right? You’ll want to get a job and settle down, Curly. You told me you’ve always wanted a family.” He says, smirking.

“But you’re my family.” He says softly, staring down at the mask. Louis gives him a sad smile and nods.

“And you are mine. But we both know you won’t be coming here for forever, you know?” Louis asks, smiling a bit. Harry nods and smiles back.

“I thought of you during winter. And autumn and spring. You won’t forget about me, will you?” Harry asks, tears welling up in his eyes.

“I could never forget you, Curly.”

“I mean, we’re gonna get separated someday, you know? It’s inevitable.”

“Well until then, let’s stay together.” Louis says, smiling wetly up at Harry.  “And when did you get so damn _tall_?”

 

\--

 

Later that day, Louis and Harry are sitting on a log, swinging their legs back and forth.

“A spirit festival?” Harry asks.

“No, silly. A festival for the spirits. It’s a lot of fun, I promise.”

“That doesn’t sound much different from what I said, Louis.” Harry laughs.

“Whatever. Can you sneak out of your house tonight? I would like for you to come with me.”

“What, like a date?” Harry says, smiling over at Louis.

“Yeah, Harold. Like a date.”

  
  


Harry sneaks out and finds himself surrounded by multiple spirits.

“They’re all dressed as humans.” Harry says excitedly.

“Exactly, so you blend right in.” Louis says, tugging on the string of cloth between their hands.

They walk around the festival for hours before it’s time for Harry to head back to his uncle’s. Louis walks him to the ends of the woods.

“I had a lot of fun tonight.” Harry says, smiling down at Louis.

“Me too, you loser. C’mere,” Louis says. He pulls his mask off his head and puts it over Harry’s face carefully. He brings his face close to the mask and kisses the lips of it.

“Goodnight, Harry.” He whispers.

Harry begins to walk away before he turns around to see Louis smiling at him.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, Louis?” He whispers. “I’m in love with a fucking ghost.”

“Love?” Louis responds, all signs of a smile disappearing from his face.

“Yeah,” Harry laughs. “Love. I don’t know how, but _fuck_. I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.”

“I can’t be with you.” Louis says softly.

“Don’t you think I fucking _know_ that, Louis? You can’t even kiss me without disappearing. What happens now? Should I just leave and not come back? Should I even waste my fucking time anymore?” Harry yells.

A few kids come running towards them, and one trips over a branch right in front of Louis. He reaches out and grabs the kids arm before he falls. The little boy stands up and smiles up at Louis.

“Thanks you, sir!” He says before running after his friend. Louis looks at Harry with wide eyes.

His hand begins glowing, and his fingers begin disappearing into the air.

“No,” Harry whispers. “No, no _no_. Please, _fuck_. He was human?”

Louis laughs wetly and shrugs. “I guess this answers your question, huh Curly?”

Harry runs to Louis and wraps his arm around his waist. Louis pulls Harry close and kisses all over his face.

“I’m sorry.” Harry whispers. “Please don’t leave me.”

Louis continues kissing Harry’s face before Harry tumbles forward and lands on the ground. All that’s underneath are Louis’ clothes, but no Louis.

 

\--

 

Days are very hard for Harry, now. He hasn’t been back to the woods since Louis had disappeared. He can’t eat much, and he rarely sleeps. Because when he does, all he can dream of is _blueblueblue_. And all he can think about is what Louis told him before he started high school.

_“It happens really, really slow, and you have no idea whats coming. Nobody can prepare you for love, Harold.”_

And _boy_ , was he right.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't noticed, this fic is sort of a weird version of the amazing anime Hotarubi no Mori e. if you have time, please look it up and watch. it will change your life.


End file.
